


The Metaphorical Significance of Baking

by Selenay



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Bake Sales, Baking, Food as a Metaphor for Love, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-09 00:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenay/pseuds/Selenay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bake sales at SHIELD were a little different from the kind of bake sales held in most organisations. For starters, most organisations didn't have to arrange rapid testing of all baked goods on the morning of the sale to ensure no ingredients with hallucinogenic, aphrodisiac or sedative properties had been added to the pies and cookies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Metaphorical Significance of Baking

**Author's Note:**

> This started out from [this post of mine on Tumblr](http://selenay936.tumblr.com/post/47585022349/how-about-if-i-use-doctor-who-spoiler-any-time%22) and somehow grew into 4k of pining via baking. IDEK.
> 
> If anyone has missed it, there's an auction happening at the moment in support of the AO3 over [here](http://ao3auction.tumblr.com/authorlist). I'm up for sale over there so if you want a custom fic by me, head over there and bid! Or there are other authors for sale as well, if a fic by me isn't your cup of tea (although I'd question why you're reading this if that's the case!).

Bake sales at SHIELD were a little different from the kind of bake sales held in most organisations. For starters, most organisations didn't have to arrange rapid testing of all baked goods on the morning of the sale to ensure no ingredients with hallucinogenic, aphrodisiac or sedative properties had been added to the pies and cookies.

There had been an incident in the early days. It was legendary. On the positive side, it identified a Hydra mole SHIELD had been trying to trace for months.

On the negative side, everyone agreed that post-bake sale STD tests were not something they wanted to endure regularly.

The security requirements meant that bake sales at SHIELD were infrequent and consequently massively popular when they happened. Hydra's attempt to undermine SHIELD via drugged cupcakes showed a firm grasp of the passion SHIELD employees had for really amazing baked goods.

Over time certain traditions had emerged around who brought what.

Phil Coulson brought scones. His pineapple coconut ones were always popular but his lemon-glazed raspberry scones tended to cause a mass stampede when word got out that they were there.

Clint was the brownie expert. He experimented occasionally with Mexican hot chocolate or peanut butter flavour, but it was his double chocolate brownies that everyone anticipated. Whoever was organising the bake sale usually sent out an alert if he'd made those because people would actually sell their souls (Agent Smith had been reprimanded for that incident) for just one small square.

Maria Hill's speciality was cheesecakes. She always brought two different flavours: one tried and tested flavour and one new recipe. The bake sale organisers had learned she'd question them after to find out how the new one sold so they made sure to keep detailed records of when each slice was sold and email the spreadsheet to her later.

Natasha brought fruit pies. Clint had taught her to make pastry when they were stuck together in a small apartment during a long op and fruit pies only required pastry and some fruit so that's what she made. She stuck to safe fillings, apple or strawberry and rhubarb, and nobody ever dared tell her that she might need to add a bit of sugar to the rhubarb. They just ate and tried not to let their mouths pucker if she was nearby.

Sitwell was a surprisingly creative cupcake decorator. Nobody ever asked where he'd learned.

Bake sale organisers knew that there would always be two lemon drizzle cakes waiting when they arrived. Nobody ever inquired where they came from but the speculation on the secret lemon drizzle baker's identity was a hot topic in the lead up to each sale.

***

Phil was never going to understand why he always seemed to end up in meetings on bake sale days. It just seemed to be the way his weeks worked out. He'd always drop off his tray of scones, gaze longingly at the plates of brownies and cookies being prepared, and then rush off to gather up his notes for the day's security briefings, R and D updates and mission planning sessions.

By the time he was finally free to browse the sale almost everything would be gone. He'd be left to pick disappointedly through the mystery cookies and bizarre muffins that nobody wanted (cherry and pistachio, who thought these up?) and eventually trudge back to his office with a single stale sugar cookie and a consolatory cup of coffee.

Clint was waiting for him in his office after one particularly disappointing bake sale where he didn't even manage get a stale sugar cookie. An eyebrow rose when Clint saw Phil's large cup of coffee and conspicuous absence of food.

"Not hungry?" he asked curiously.

Phil shrugged. "Too busy today. Maybe next time. I've been told your brownies were particularly good this time."

Clint beamed. "New recipe. Cheesecake marbled."

"That's what I heard," Phil said, trying not to sound too mournful but he'd missed _cheesecake marbled brownies_. "Betsy in accounting is threatening to kidnap you and keep you as her brownie slave."

A look of horror briefly crossed Clint's face before he rolled his eyes. "Never going to happen, sir. She won't take me alive."

Phil laughed and nodded to the file under Clint's arm. "Did you come by just to torment me with brownies I can't eat or did you bring something important?"

***

After the next bake sale, Phil returned to his office and found a plate on his desk carefully covered with plastic wrap. He eyed it for a long moment before making a cup of coffee and settling down to enjoy his treat, feeling the frustrations from two hours of budget discussions melting away at the first taste of rich, moist double chocolate brownie.

There was no note but Phil knew who had left them and the thought made something warm and happy settle in his chest that had nothing to do with the excellent baking.

***

Bake sale days were both Clint's favourite day and his nightmare. On the upside, there were all those delicious sweet treats. Donate to whatever charity or fundraising project someone had a bug about and get a delicious reward, what could be better?

The down side was that the good stuff all got sold within the first half hour any sale and Clint was usually schedule for range time or training for half the morning. He'd deliver his platters of brownies early, often just after the first few contributions arrived, and by the time he emerged from the gym around midmorning feeling ravenous most of the best things would be gone.

Sure, Natasha's fruit pies were usually still around and Sitwell's cupcakes. There were usually a few slices of coffee cake and some healthy bran muffins. But Coulson's scones and Hill's cheesecake were always gone and scones were one of Clint's secret weaknesses.

He wasn't sure why he started keeping back a couple of brownie squares to leave on Coulson's desk. Coulson had just looked so tired and defeated the day he didn't even get a crappy stale sugar cookie and Clint had formed the plan right there and then, nearly forgetting to give Coulson the forms he'd been there to deliver.

Clint's office was a tiny room with barely enough space for his desk, a filing cabinet, and the case for his spare bow. He wasn't even sure whether most people even knew where his office was. It was the one place in the whole of SHIELD HQ where he could guarantee that nobody would ever interrupt something he was working on, though, so he suspected nobody knew about it.

Given the size, he sometimes wondered whether it was really an office or if he'd been stuck in a supply closet and forgotten about.

So when he got back to his office after a long, satisfying session on the range and spotted a covered plate on his desk, he did a double-take.

Then he checked the plate and grinned because damn it, Coulson was a sneaky bastard and those were the lemon-glazed raspberry scones. Clint closed the door and kicked back in his chair so he could properly appreciate the sweetly tangy treats.

***

Phil very carefully didn't ask Clint about the scones, but he did note that Clint picked at his lunch that day instead of wolfing down his shepherd's pie. Clint had never been the type of person who saved his treats until after a meal.

Not that Phil was much better at it: his mouth had been watering before he even got to his office to see whether Clint had left another plate of brownies and he'd only managed to keep one back for an afternoon indulgence. The other two had been savoured with a cup of coffee so he wasn't feeling very hungry for lunch either. Cheesecake marbled brownies were as good as he'd heard, the rich cheesecake somehow acting as the perfect counter to the sweetness of the brownie.

***

Their exchange of scones and brownies on bale sale days was never acknowledged by either of them. It just continued, a thing they did and never talked about for reasons neither of them really wanted to examine.

***

Natasha figured it out after the third exchange. She was waiting in Clint's office when he got back from the range, his stomach grumbling in anticipation already. There was an amused curl to her lips and she tapped the edge of the wrapped plate sitting on Clint's desk as he entered.

"I can't decide whether this is sweet or incredibly pathetic," she said.

Clint shrugged casually and edged past her to his chair. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Really," she drawled.

"It's just a few scones and brownies, neither of us ever get to the bake sale on time," he said. "That's all."

"Uh huh." Natasha's smile was a little too gleeful for Clint's comfort. "So you won't mind sharing, then?"

Clint couldn't entirely restrain his instinctive grab for the plate and Natasha chuckled.

"Sweet," she said dryly, "with a hint of pathetic."

Then she sauntered out of the office with a small wave. She even closed the office door behind her and Clint manfully managed not to beat his head on the desk a couple of times.

Maybe he'd leave a note when he delivered Coulson's brownies next time. Just to stop Natasha using words like 'pathetic' around him again.

***

Clint didn't leave a note and neither did Phil, even though Sitwell found out about the scone and brownie exchange six months after Natasha. They both promised themselves each time that they'd leave some kind of note the next time and they never did.

***

After the Battle of New York, as most of the world took to calling it, there weren't any bake sales at SHIELD for a long time. With so many agents killed and so much destruction around them, it just didn't seem right to anyone.

There was also the time factor: all the supervillain organisations on the planet looked at the devastation and decided this was the perfect time to attempt something diabolical. Every agent in SHIELD had to work all the hours they had just to keep on top of things. Agents who had retired from the field years ago were hastily retrained, rushed through recertification and thrown into the thick of things. New recruits were given the most basic training possible and trusted to learn on the job.

Phil was back at his desk less than two months after being skewered and declared dead, although even Fury had to concede to the medical department's firmly voiced opinion that Phil wouldn't be fit for more than desk work for at least another three months.

The atmosphere around the New York HQ of SHIELD was one of constant tension and threat but it was almost laid back compared to the helicarrier. Doing anything that wasn't directly connected to averting world-ending disaster seemed frivolous when they were dealing with catastrophes on a daily basis. 

***

It was the IT department who broke SHIELD's bake sale drought. They signed up for a charity boat race and the question of how to raise the entry fee came up. A bake sale was tentatively proposed, because nothing raised more money than sweet treats, and the rumour went around the New York office like wildfire.

Within a week the plans were in place and the new recruits were eagerly listening to every description of famous brownies and cakes the older agents could remember.

The IT department ended up with more than three times the money they'd needed for their boat race and everyone agreed that the sale was a great success. Even the newer people attached to SHIELD contributed.

Steve's mom had taught him to make a good, basic frosted pound cake and that skill came back easily. Against all expectations, he didn't head straight for the cookies and coffee cakes when the sale opened. Instead, he made a few inquiries and then took samples of Hill's newest recipe - a salted caramel cheesecake - and the chili chocolate muffins one of the new recruits had brought. It became his habit: bring a basic pound cake, leave with a couple of new and exotic flavours several people started competing to find the most interesting new 'thing' for Steve to try.

Jane taught Thor to make oatmeal cookies. Massive cookies that were sweet and chewy and hearty enough to replace a meal, studded with raisins because Darcy insisted that oatmeal cookies were supposed to pretend to be healthy even if they really weren't. 

Bruce turned out to have a gift for light, delicate macarons in a stunning array of flavours. He claimed that concentrating on getting them just right was surprisingly calming.

Tony had no gift for baking and neither did Pepper, but everyone else was taking part so Pepper insisted they had to do something. The kitchen in Stark Tower reeked for a day after their first attempt at muffins, but they quickly got the hang of them and produced a mostly edible batch for the first bake sale and upgraded to a fairly tasty batch for subsequent ones.

***

Phil's calendar filled up with the usual bake sale day meetings, but his calendar was always filled with meetings these days so he wasn't surprised. In fact, it was good to have his morning so thoroughly booked up with things he had to pay attention to because it kept his mind off wondering what he'd find in his office later.

Clint hadn't been quite the same since Loki. Objectively, Phil knew that was to be expected after everything Clint had been through. He would have been worried if Clint had bounced back to his normal irrepressible self in a couple of days because nobody had, even the agents who hadn't spent several days being mind-controlled by an alien god.

But there was a distance between them, now, that Phil was sure had nothing to do with Loki and everything to do with the four days he'd been "dead". It was nothing overt, just a sense that Clint was holding himself back from slipping back into the habits they'd always had together. He still did all the usual things, including dropping by Phil's office unannounced to annoy him, but there was always something in Clint's eyes that Phil couldn't quite read.

Something wary. Or maybe more accurately, something nervous and cautious. Phil didn't understand that look, but he worried at it in his mind every now and again, trying to work out what it meant and why it made something in his chest ache when he saw it.

So after his last meeting of the morning Phil took his time as he walked back to his office. He popped his head round the conference room door to check on the bake sale's progress (four sugar cookies and two burned Stark muffins remained), bought coffee in the lunchroom and he only went back to his office when he couldn't put it off any longer.

A wrapped plate sat in the middle of his desk.

Phil smiled to himself, feeling unaccountably relieved, and hurried over. The delicious smell of Clint's double chocolate brownies wafted up as soon as he pulled the plastic wrap away and Phil settled in to enjoy them.

***

Several floors down, Clint sat back in his uncomfortable office chair and smiled happily as he ate a lemon-glazed raspberry scone. If he and Coulson were back to their usual bake sale exchanges then the world had to be alright again.

There was a post-it note from Natasha on his computer monitor. He'd been staring at it ever since he came back from the range to find the plate of scones perched on top of his unfiled mission reports. Just two short sentences but they seemed to weigh on his mind and take some of the enjoyment out of Coulson's excellent baking.

Clint scowled at the note, ripped it off his monitor and tore it into tiny little pieces before flipping open his phone and slowly tapping out a message to Natasha.

_* Next time. Promise. *_

***

It wasn't next time or the time after. Bake sales came and went, brownies and scones were exchanged wordlessly.

Clint promised Natasha every time that he'd do something.

Phil rolled his eyes whenever Sitwell made pointed digs about the situation.

Clint tried out a new brownie recipe with a darker chocolate taste because he'd noted Phil's preference for dense, rich flavours over sweeter offerings.

Phil perfected a glazed pumpkin scone recipe after overhearing Clint's enthusiasm for Starbucks' version and vowing to do better.

Even Steve eventually noticed the mutual pining via baked goods and he spent an entire morning trying to work out a way to fix things without success.

***

It was Bruce who quietly watched everyone watching Clint and Phil and came up with a plan. The bake sale day, he slipped into Phil's office just after Clint left and removed the plate of brownies, replacing it with a note.

He repeated the trick in Clint's office while the archer was on the range.

Then he left both plates in a small, rarely used meeting room and wandered away so they didn't have to do this with an audience.

***

Phil stared at the note in his hand. He was hungry and tired, his head was throbbing after a long morning discussing case management processes (and he still hadn't worked out why he'd been in that meeting in the first place), and there were no brownies on his desk. Just a note in unfamiliar handwriting directing him to a meeting room in the subbasement.

He read it three times through before sighing, picking up his travel mug of coffee and setting out for elevators.

***

Clint stared at the note taped to his computer monitor. He was hungry and achy after a range session followed by two hours of sparring with Natasha. And there were no scones, just the faint impression of a plate on his stack of unread HR memos with a note beside it.

He tried holding the paper up against the light, in case there was a watermark telling him this was some kind of complicated joke, before sighing and setting out for the elevators. Whoever had stolen his scones was going to be in trouble.

***

The meeting room Clint had been directed to was at the end of a long, dark hallway in a forgotten area of SHIELD's subbasement. Clint couldn't even remember the last time he was in this part of the building and, from the dust coating the handles of some of the doors he passed, he suspected he might be the first person down here for a couple of years. 

The first person except for the mysterious scone kidnapper, he mentally amended.

He found the correct door and took a careful breath before opening it, preparing himself for almost every potential scenario except the one he found: Coulson standing by a table staring down at a plate of brownies next to a plate of scones on a table. There was a note in Coulson's hand and he looked up as Clint entered, a faint frown pulling his brows together.

"Huh," Clint said intelligently.

Coulson sighed. "My thoughts exactly."

He held out the note and Clint approached to take it with the kind of care he usually reserved for live ammo.

Clint read it rapidly and then a second time, more slowly, before lowering it and staring blankly at the plates of baked goods.

"We've been set up," he said after a while.

"Apparently," Coulson said mildly. "Our mysterious benefactor may have a point, this is getting ridiculous."

"Which part?" Clint asked.

A smile tugged at the corners of Coulson's lips. "The part where we're 'wooing each other with sweet treats and can't actually talk to each other like adults', according to this note."

Clint shrugged. "It's worked pretty well for the last few years, sir."

Something seemed to be tightening around Clint's chest like a vice, possibly terror or perhaps anticipation, everything was too muddled together in his head to pull apart. The whole scone/brownie exchange thing had been their _thing_. Their way of maybe having feelings without ever having to talk about it or do anything real. Clint knew his track record, his amazing ability to fuck up every relationship he had, and he liked this tentative maybe flirtation through baking because it was something he couldn't ruin. If one batch came out a little wrong he could just toss them, start again, and Coulson never had to know.

Coulson took a careful deep breath. "Maybe it's time for a new plan."

"What kind of plan?"

"One where you call me Phil sometimes and I call you Clint and we stop sitting separate offices on bake sale days," Coulson said slowly.

Clint's chest still too tight and he wasn't quite breathless but that was only because he couldn't quite remember how to breathe. He felt as though his throat was closing and he had to force words past the thick lump lodged there.

"That could take a bit of getting used to," he said, his voice much calmer than he felt.

"We could start today," Coulson said with a gesture to the plates and the table they were sitting on. "I'd be willing to share my coffee with you, if you'll stay to eat with me."

Clint eyed the large travel mug and unexpectedly clean table. Whoever had set them up had thought things through, made sure the table had been dusted and brought in a couple of uncomfortable but sturdy-looking chairs. Sharing Coulson's coffee from his mug seemed like an incredibly intimate thing and Clint was surprised by how much he wanted it.

Wanted to see whether this thing they'd been pretending they weren't doing might actually work out.

He stepped closer to the table and pulled out a chair to sit down. The world didn't change, the universe didn't implode, but the tightness in his chest suddenly eased as Coulson sat down beside him and nudged his mug closer to Clint.

"We could try that," Clint said. He thought for a moment and then, just to try it out, added, "Phil."

The smile he got was one he'd never seen before, a happy, hopeful smile that he thought might be one Phil almost never showed to anyone. It brought out an answering smile and Clint didn't even mind that Phil stole one of the scones, muttering something about never getting to sample his own wares.

He didn't mind _much_ , anyway. Particularly when Phil pointed out that dating the scone-maker would get him scones outside of bake sale day.

***

The next SHIELD bake sale was two months later. Phil spent the morning locked in a room with several department heads discussing resourcing and budgets, two subjects that made him itch for a loaded gun and someone to use it on.

Clint spent the morning on the range with a bunch of new recruits, trying to find someone who might be worth training as a sniper out of a group that he hoped would never actually have to fire their weapons for real.

Sitwell raised his eyebrows when he spotted Clint pouring coffee into Phil's large travel mug but he didn't say anything. Natasha spotted Clint disappearing into Phil's office with the coffee and a plate of brownies and she snickered quietly but didn't say anything. Bruce smiled to himself when word got around that Phil and Clint were locked in Phil's office with coffee, scones and brownies and tried not to feel too smug about his good deeds.

Phil and Clint were too busy appreciating each other's baking, among other things, to care about all those knowing looks. Bake sale days were definitely the best days.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm dedicated to my craft. So dedicated that I baked [the cheesecake marbled brownies](http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/09/cheesecake-swirled-brownies/) to check out the recipe and can confirm that they are _amazing_. My sacrifices for the art are so difficult some days.


End file.
